Randolph County highways office maps cold‑storage addition and moves to meet bridge grant deadlines

County highway staff and the project's architect reviewed site plans for a proposed cold‑storage building at the Randolph County highway garage and outlined next steps for bidding on multiple bridge projects.

Dave Innerstruck of Maze Design walked commissioners through preferred siting (against an existing stone wall), door locations and vehicle access. Innerstruck said the team will verify detention pond capacity to determine whether a new detention basin is necessary or whether existing pond capacity can be reused to reduce costs. "I was also gonna see if you had drawings of the original highway garage when it was built," Innerstruck said; staff agreed to share available design CDs and drawings to help match utilities and avoid unnecessary new infrastructure.

Highway engineer Joe Copeland presented task order No. 10 for bridge 68, recommending a new superstructure and deck and replacement of a beam that now has holes, and task order No. 11 to continue on‑call construction inspection services with a $30,000 cap. Copeland also said Community Crossings matching grant paperwork for Bridge 29 must be submitted to NDOT by March 1; the board agreed to advertise and receive bids in time to meet that deadline.

Copeland described typical bid outreach as soliciting about five known local contractors while publicly advertising and distributing plans via plan rooms, which can generate 40–50 plan-room distributions though many firms decline to travel long distances. Commissioners discussed scheduling bid openings around Presidents Day and logged procedural directions for receiving and marking bid documents.

The board voted to approve the presented task orders and signed required title sheets for the Bridge 29 bid package so the project could be advertised.